


Timestamp 1: Fugue State

by gingerswag



Series: Keeping You in Sight [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:40:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24866959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerswag/pseuds/gingerswag
Summary: When Sam’s eyes land on Dean, he nearly screams.He doesn’t realize that it’s Dean at first, doesn’t expect him to be standing blank and still and noiseless in the pitch black kitchen at three in the morning.But that is Sam’s own error, because this isn’t the first time he’s found Dean like this. In fact, it’s the fourth.(Sam finds Dean in an altered state of mind in the middle of the night and tries to talk him through it)
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Keeping You in Sight [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799275
Comments: 42
Kudos: 285





	Timestamp 1: Fugue State

**Author's Note:**

> This is a timestamp for my fic Keeping You in Sight. It takes place a few months after the end of that fic. It will make a lot more sense if you've read that fic.
> 
> In regards to "chose not to use archive warnings"- This fic is built on a ton of past trauma and abuse and assumes the reader knows the backstory, as past abuse is implied throughout. Nothing traumatic happens in this story though, and though the whole thing references the backstory, nothing is explicit.

When Sam’s eyes land on Dean, he nearly screams.

He doesn’t realize that it’s Dean at first, doesn’t expect him to be standing blank and still and noiseless in the pitch black kitchen at three in the morning.

But that is Sam’s own error, because this isn’t the first time he’s found Dean like this. In fact, it’s the fourth.

It doesn’t matter though. Sam’s own tense paranoia won’t ever allow him to catch sight of an unexpected shadowy figure in his home and not react with terror. He startles the same way Dean startles, disproportionately and without logic to temper his fright.

He feels his heart stop, and then start again at a pace that is much too fast, jackrabbiting in his chest and pulsing hard enough to feel it in his throat.

Even as his brain makes the connection that it’s Dean, _it’s Dean, it’s just Dean,_ it is too late to stop the cold wave of adrenalin from washing through him, like an electric shock that runs down his body before dissipating.

The figure- Dean, it’s Dean- stares at him through the dark. He is ominously motionless.

Sam lets out a shaky breath. He curls and uncurls his fingers, trying to ignore the fact that they’re trembling.

“Dean,” Sam says, hoping he sounds calm.

Dean doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink, perhaps doesn’t even breathe. He’s as still as a statue, and Sam realizes that he must have walked right past him on his way to the bathroom, only having noticed him now that he’s on his way back.

Sam swallows. “Dean,” he says again, gentler.

Dean says nothing. His eyes flicker away from Sam, to the side, and then down. The rest of him stays still.

Sam’s stomach sinks.

This has happened before, but each time he hopes that it’s something else. He hopes that maybe Dean had a nightmare and had to get out of his room, or that he’s missing Cas, or just couldn’t sleep and got sick of staring at the ceiling.

He doesn’t feel qualified to deal with whatever this is, whatever fugue state Dean falls into sometimes during the night. It’s worse than the panic attacks, even the ones where he gets disoriented, because those at least Sam knows how to handle. He has them himself often enough, and he knows Dean will come back to himself once the fright has passed.

He’s never experienced anything like what Dean is experiencing now, has no understanding of how to even begin to help him out of it. Truthfully, Sam is always scared that maybe Dean will never find his way back to himself, that this is it and his mind has finally snapped.

Maybe it’s a childish fear. But the way Dean is now is closer to the state Sam would have expected to find him in, if he’d ever thought Dean would still be alive all these years on. So it’s hard to remember that Dean is always alright in the end, that this is some kind of symptom of post traumatic stress and not a psychotic break, especially when it’s so dark and quiet and Sam is alone to try and help.

“Hey,” Sam says, keeping his voice quiet. “Do you know where you are?”

Dean peers at him like a hunted animal. In the dark, the shadows make his features look strange and otherworldly. He looks like something out of a horror movie.

“I- yes,” Dean finally responds. His voice sounds hoarse and afraid. “Yes. Yes, Sir.”

Having gone through this exact scenario before, Sam is not reassured.

“Ok. Can you tell me where you are?”

Dean tenses even further, if it’s possible.

“I’m. It’s. It’s. I’m in, I’m at….I don’t. I don’t. I’m, _please,_ I don’t-”

“Okay.” Sam cuts him off. Dean falls silent immediately. “It’s ok, Dean. You’re at our house. You’re in the kitchen. You’re safe, you’re home. Listen, I’m gonna turn the lights on, alright?”

Dean doesn’t answer, but Sam doesn’t expect him to. He flicks the light switch on the wall.

As soon as the kitchen is illuminated, Sam feels sick.

Dean looks even worse in the light than he did in the dark. He’s pale as a ghost, and obviously exhausted. His eyes are sunken and red rimmed, and there are tear stains on his cheeks. He’s tense and hunched over like he thinks Sam is going to lunge at him, and has wrapped his arms around his middle.

The rest of the room is even worse. Every cabinet is open, every drawer has been pulled out. There is cutlery scattered across the counter and on the ground, in what seems like a mix of erratic piles and absently dropped pieces. The baking pans have slid out of their cupboard onto the ground, and several pots and pans have been taken out and left on the stove.

Sam struggles not to react.

Dean is staring at the ground. There are two forks clutched in his right hand. He’s gripping them so tightly that his knuckles are white.

Moving towards him slowly, Sam reaches out.

“Hey, why don’t you give me those, alright?”

Sam is always somewhat afraid to touch Dean when he gets like this, especially at first. He’s so taut and wild that it always seems like he should react like something exploding from pressure. Sam is always half prepared for a scream, for Dean to scratch him or shove him away.

He never does though, instead becomes frighteningly pliant. Sam pulls Dean’s hand away from his body easily, uncurls his fingers like they are inanimate clay.

_Fight me, Dean! Tell me to fuck off! Show me you are still in there!_

Dean doesn’t fight him, but he does speak.

“I need them,” he mumbles, just as Sam is going to take the forks. His grip offers no resistance, but his voice is pleading.

Sam pauses.

“What do you need them for, Dean?”

Dean doesn’t seem to know. Sam watches his throat work without producing any noise, watches his expression become increasingly confused. He lets this go on for about a minute before he intervenes.

“Did you forget? It’s alright if you did.”

Dean’s gaze meets his.

“What?”

“About why you needed the forks.”

“Forks?”

“The ones you’re holding, Dean.”

Dean looks down at his hands. He seems surprised to see himself holding anything.

Sam finishes prying the cutlery from his grip, and places it on the counter besides them.

“Never mind. It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

Dean’s eyes track his hand putting the forks aside. His gaze stays caught on them where they’re left on the counter for several seconds, before his eyes suddenly fly to Sam’s face.

“Did you find it?” he asks.

“Find what?”

“I don’t know. The thing I was looking for. Do you have it?”

Sam glances around at the frantic mess of the kitchen, looking like it’s had its guts pulled out.

“Oh. Were you looking for something?”

“I’m looking for Sam.”

Sam’s head jerks back towards Dean.

His eyes look wide and frantic. Sam imagines he looks the same way.

“What did you say?”

“Sam. I’m looking for him. He got lost. Or. Or.” Dean looks to the side. His hands are picking at the hem of his shirt. “Or maybe he ran away. I don’t know. I have to find him. I have to…oh my _god_ I have to _find him.”_

When Dean tries to run past him, run out the kitchen and towards the door, Sam isn’t ready. He isn’t ready, and he’s surprised to find out that it doesn’t matter. He keeps forgetting that he’s bigger than Dean now, and that if he reaches out and grabs him, he’s not going to be able to keep going.

“Dean!” He yells, shocked. “Dean, it’s ok! I’m Sam. Dean, look at me, _I’m Sam,_ look at me!”

Dean jerks away from him. He doesn’t look at him, but he stops trying to run to the door.

“What? Who are you? Who _are you?_ You’re not Cas!”

“No, I’m not Cas. Dean, please look at me. You don’t know who I am?”

Dean clearly doesn’t. He’s backed himself up against the stove, and he’s shaking. His fists are curled, like he thinks he’s going to have to defend himself.

This has never happened before. No matter how disoriented or amnesiac Dean has become, he’s never failed to recognize Sam before. Sam tries and fails not to let his distress show on his face.

“I’m not supposed to let no one hurt me,” Dean mutters. “Cas said so.”

Sam takes a step back. He feels awful, because Dean doesn’t recognize him, and he feels awful because he didn’t realize that.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I’m not going to let you. And…and I’m not gonna let you throw shit at me neither.”

His voice is strained, and coming close to shaking though Dean is clearly trying to control it. He’s trying to seem unintimidated, but he can’t seem to make eye contact for more than a second at a time.

“I’d never throw stuff at you, Dean.”

Dean scowls, and makes a short, aborted gesture to their surroundings that Sam struggles to interpret.

He looks around at the mess of kitchenware around them, flung irregularly through the room and on the floor. It can be hard to follow Dean’s train of thought when he’s in this kind of state, because his thoughts jump from topic to topic, and don’t usually make a lot of sense. But Sam sees that maybe, if Dean had forgotten the rest of their conversation, that it could seem like the things around the room had been thrown.

“I didn’t throw this stuff. You were going through it earlier. Do you remember?”

Dean looks confused.

“You said you were looking for something,” Sam prompts.

Dean’s attention seems to be caught by those words. He looks around the room slowly. Gradually, his body language relaxes, fists uncurling and taught body slumping.

“I. I was looking for something.”

“That’s what you said. It’s alright, Dean.”

“It was a necklace,” Dean says absently. “I can’t find it.”

Surprised, Sam frowns. “A necklace?”

“Yes. It was a charm…it was metal. It had a face.”

Sam looks around the kitchen dubiously.

“I’ve never seen you wear a necklace, Dean. And if you did have one, you wouldn’t have put it in the kitchen.”

Dean doesn’t answer, but continues to peer around the kitchen like the necklace in question might pop out of nowhere.

“Did…are you looking for something Cas gave you?”

Dean looks bewildered by this suggestion.

“Cas? Of course not. Sam gave it to me.”

Sam is about to protest, to try to tell this madness-riddled version of Dean that he’s mistaken, but the words die on his lips. Instead, some foggy, half repressed memory claws its way out of Sam’s mess of a psyche, a memory of him giving Dean something, something small and metal and hell it did have a face on it, didn’t it?

“I thought John would take it from me,” Dean says absently. “So I hid it in the back of the utensil drawer.”

Oh. _Oh._

Sam suddenly can’t bear to look at the torn apart kitchen.

“Dean…” he whispers. “That was a long time ago.”

Dean’s eyes aren’t focused on anything, anymore.

“I know it was a long time ago. John is gone now, and so is Sam.”

“I’m right in front of you, Dean.”

Dean shakes his head.

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because it’s true.”

Dean peers up at him, and when did that happen, that Dean needs to look up to see him?

“Sammy is little,” Dean says uncertainly.

“That was a long time ago, too.”

They stare at each other for a long time after that. Sam aches to reach out, to gather Dean in a hug in some part to comfort him but more to reassure himself that he’s really there, really alive and not bruised or broken or bleeding. He feels raw like he’s been crying, even though he hasn’t.

He doesn’t reach out though, because some instinctual part of him knows that this is almost over, that Dean is winding down, but that he has to let him process whatever it is he’s processing or they will be flung about by his confusion again.

Dean, for his part, is studying Sam’s face with an intensity that would be uncomfortable if Sam wasn’t so tired and burnt out. He looks haunted and wary, torn between wanting to believe that Sam is in front of him and not wanting to acknowledge the years that have gone by.

Eventually reality wins out over whatever dissonance is happening in Dean’s mind.

“Sam?” He wonders eventually.

“Yeah, Dean, it’s me.”

Dean looks around at the destroyed room. There is exhaustion written in every line of his body.

“I’m tired,” he says.

“So am I,” Sam agrees. “We should go to bed.”

Dean gestures, a small movement towards the general area, as if Sam hadn’t noticed the wreck.

“There’s. Someone made a mess.”

“It’s…don’t worry about it, Dean. We can deal with it tomorrow.”

Dean doesn’t move.

“I need to clean it.”

“Dean…”

“I want to clean it.”

He sounds stronger this time. Sam sighs.

“Alright, we’ll clean it up, then go to bed.”

Dean looks at him. He still seems disoriented, but some clarity seems to be coming back to his eyes.

“Did. Did I do this? I should clean it. You shouldn’t…You don’t have to…”

Sam ignores the stuttering, knowing what Dean is trying to say and not having the energy to gentle him away from the thought. He moves over to the counter and starts collecting cutlery, sorting them in his hands.

“It will be easier to deal with it together, Dean, alright? Just let me help you.”

Sam isn’t looking at Dean anymore, is facing the wall, but he feels Dean’s eyes on his back.

After several moments where Dean doesn’t speak, Sam closes his eyes, bracing himself for Dean to argue.

He doesn’t, though.

“Sure, Sam,” he murmurs. “Easy…Easier together. Yeah. Thanks.”

Sam hears, then, the shuffling sound of Dean moving, then the clinking of kitchen items being set back into place. The intensity of his relief takes him off guard, and Sam has to pause and lean against the counter as it rushes over him.

Maybe Dean recognizes who Sam is after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Bet ya'll thought I was dead!! Nope!! Just in grad school and being Consumed!!
> 
> Still thinking about this verse, hoping I can get some more of these up if I ever have time!


End file.
